Sometimes I Climb the Walls and Lie on the Ceiling

The Ultimate How To Upset Bloggers Guide

I’m just clickbaiting. This isn’t a how to upset bloggers guide. But if you did visit this post for that and you really want to know how to do it – do what you normally do which upsets people and voila!

So why the title?

Well, yesterday I had an interesting comment-chat with Rory on his post:

He mentioned in his post that when he first started out blogging, he inadvertently upset a couple of other bloggers. Upsetting those bloggers upset him. He made amends as best as he could, learned a lesson and incorporated that lesson in his blogging life.

In our chat I stated that:

As for upsetting bloggers, I could write a How-to-upset-bloggers post on it

as I’m particularly skilled at it due to being me and doing things my way. If I’m feeling particularly impish I might actually do that.

After I’d posted my comment, I experienced a memory rush of the times I’ve upset other bloggers.

I should probably point out that it was always by accident and never intentional. I don’t need to do it intentionally as my ability to do it unintentionally just keeps doing its thing.

Usually the upsets are small. When I first started blogging the small upsets used to mortify me… and I’d end up making things worse by trying to make things better (I’m very successful at that too), turning a small upset into a big upset.

Small upsets can be caused by:

Misunderstandings. My style of self-expression is a bit confusing, a bit mixed-up foreign to all including aliens. People take me seriously when I’m being silly, think I’m being silly when I’m serious. Don’t know what I’m talking about but are certain I insinuated something insulting about them.

Slight clash of character. I’m tactless. A bit too blunt. If saying the wrong thing was an Olympic event, I’d win a gold medal every time and be hated for ruining the competition for everyone else.

I get up people’s noses with my attitude, particularly the “we’re all equals here” stance. That gets me into trouble offline too. So does all of the above and below.

There’s a certain type of blogger who views themselves as a cut above the rest. They expect people, especially other bloggers, to respect their authoritah and be servile towards them.

When I blog-bump into one of them, they will try to put me in my place beneath them.

When that doesn’t work they go for the ignoring the insignificant pea routine.

Which is all for the best because that type of blogger also expects other bloggers to follow them loyally, LIKE every post they publish regardless of whether you actually like it or read it (it’s all about the Stats, Dahlings), tell them how fantastic they are, what a writing genius gift they have, pepper their posts with compliments.

While they don’t do any of that for other bloggers in return unless it benefits them to do so – like if the other blogger is a bigger fish.

When they deign to do so you as their inferior have to acknowledge the honour, grovel, I am not worthy, grovel, thank you for noticing me, grovel.

I wonder how many bloggers I’ve upset by saying all of that? The answer is probably none because the type of blogger who would be upset by that doesn’t read my posts.

Unless I link to one of their posts without realising they’re one of those types of bloggers.

That happened a few months ago. I was inspired by a post, shared the link, shared an excerpt, and explained why I had been inspired by it. That blogger followed the pingback. They didn’t read my post properly or didn’t understand what I’d said, and got upset with me in a comment. I apologised. Never heard from them again. End of that story.

My very first greatly upset with me blogger story is one I’ve told before. I find sharing my mistake-making mess to be very therapeutic.

It happened during my early days on Tumblr. I posted an illustration of theirs from their deviantart, with title, name of artist and linked it to that account.

That post went viral on Tumblr overnight, it got something like 50,000 likes and loads of reblogs, and ended up as a featured post on Tumblr’s in house blog. The Tumblr platform is faster and more manic than WordPress, and the reader is like a waterfall of images and words, you can Like a 100 posts in a minute and reblog in a blink of an eye.

I can’t recall how I found out that the artist had a Tumblr, but when I did I excitedly visited it and… their most recent post was a passive-aggressive rant about some blogger getting all this attention after having posted their illustration, and how that blogger had ruined their day, this was the worst thing which could happen to an artist and their work.

I felt sick to the stomach. Passive-aggressive attacks tend to do that to me… they also tend to make me angry. Bloody artists (my father was a professional artist, I grew up surrounded by artists, and worked in the art business… bloody artists!)!

I had followed blogging etiquette, credited her, and it was linked to source. I just hadn’t realised that she had a Tumblr, there was no link to it from her deviantart or I would have reblogged. I messaged her and apologised to her for upsetting her, explained my error, and reblogged a bunch of other illustrations from her Tumblr. She forgave me and took down her passive-aggressive post. End of that story.

After that I became more assiduous about checking if an artist had a Tumblr, which made sharing the artwork of new artists less of a pleasure and turned blogging into a chore.

Hmmm… I think that was around the time that I started writing more posts of my own. So I guess that upset blogger did me a favour.

When I started An Upturned Soul, a lot of the posts I published on here at first were ones I’d written for Tumblr. I kept both blogs going for a while… and when I published a new post, I’d do it on both blogs.

I’d actually upset that blogger before with one of my posts on a previous Tumblr I’d had.

I’d posted an image of a painting or photograph, and I’d written what the image inspired in and meant to me under the image.

That blogger reblogged my post, but removed my words, which was a normal thing to do on Tumblr and would have been fine except they felt the need to link back to my post with an explanation about why they’d removed my words, the pains they had had to go through due to blogging etiquette, and how they wished people like me wouldn’t ruin images with unnecessary blah blah.

I made the mistake of thanking them for being so considerate… we ended up having this long messaging conversation. I avoided contacting other bloggers for a long time after that.

I don’t think they recognised me, but I did recognise them and their style of upset. End of that story.

Experiences like that, while they can be upsetting in many ways… they’re great for confronting your own issues. Seize the storm and ride the wave!

You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me.

The “How To Piss Off A Narcissist without even Trying” post is one of the more popular posts on this blog, it only has 16 LIKES (it upsets me when people say things like that… Ursula, you have upset me!) but it has had 76,951 views.

My blog tends to get viewed more than it gets LIKEd.

Which reminds me, my viewing stats have been rising recently but I can’t figure out why… it could be a WordPress glitch. It is super glitchy at the moment. I kind of love it more for being messier than I am (I’ve probably upset it by saying that).

Btw, you won’t upset me if you don’t read either of those posts (or this one). You won’t upset me if you don’t LIKE my posts either. The only thing which mildly upsets me is when bloggers LIKE my posts but I know they haven’t read them. It messes with my stats, don’t do it!

I’ve upset a few bloggers by not playing along with the let’s increase our blog stats by LIKE-ing each other’s posts regardless of whether we read or like them game.

And I’ve upset them by not promoting their cries for more Followers to achieve some number goal to get a notification from WordPress congratulating them for collecting X amount of bloggers.

I did try to play those blogging community games, but it bothered me that I was doing that.

I felt as though I was selling my soul.

That’s a bit dramatic, but being dramatic as a blogger can be entertaining for the reader… and the drama can shine a spotlight on what may be too subtle in life outside of the blog, the post, otherwise to see.

So many of the things which have upset me about myself in my offline life, have also occurred in my online life. In many ways blogging has given me the ability to see old habits, patterns, cycles more clearly.

If you click LIKE not because you read a post, not because you liked a post, not because what was in the post interested you in any way, but to win blogging friends… and get them to LIKE you.

Doesn’t that devalue the LIKEs?

Or does it make them more valuable?

For me it made me aware that I was (once again… shall we add it to the other trillion times?) not valuing myself.

My inner narrative was telling me: The only way other bloggers will like you, accept you, let you play with them in this sandpit is if you pretend to be who you think they will like, accept, play with… which isn’t who you are.

So what happens to who you are, does it shrink a bit more, disappear a bit more, become a bit more dead inside to deal with the sadness, the grief, the increasingly angry inner screaming of please let me for once just be me openly and freely.

I don’t want to play with other bloggers if other bloggers don’t want to play with the real me.

And I don’t want to play with other bloggers who are not being who they really are, but who are pretending to be someone else to be LIKEd.

I want to play with other bloggers who are being the real them.

Let’s make authentic us cacophonous music together!

What’s that really annoying because it’s very good saying:

Bloggers often complain about society… I definitely have. BUT we are society, so we’re complaining about ourselves.

What can we do to turn our frowns upside down… ugh, I can’t believe I said that!

I have managed to upset myself as a blogger again.

This is a good place to end this mess.

Over to you!

Please give feedback of the radical honest kind to celebrate Mercury going into Aquarius and Mars in Aries Squaring Pluto in Capricorn all of which are totally effing with natal placements in my chart!

One astrologer (whose blog I love) said that today was a good day to – Get Real About How You Feel!

Do it in the comments (you can always ask me to delete the comment if you regret later).

And now for some muzak (warning: viewers maybe be upset by this either because they hate it when bloggers share videos, they love it when bloggers share videos but the content can’t be viewed, the content can be viewed but is upsetting to them in a manner the blogger who shared it didn’t consider or did consider and decided to be insensitive anyway):

Like this:

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Published by anupturnedsoul

Hi,
I'm Ursula.
A mistake-making mess.
Highly skilled at not doing things properly. Adept at saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
I like to have long conversations with myself and share them on my blog.
View all posts by anupturnedsoul

It’s been really lovely watching you gain in confidence as your journey in blogging progresses, I hope you’ll you’ll keep at it for many years to come. Each phase and stage comes with challenges, but you seem to thrive and grow with them. You’ve created a great blog!

I am going to concede to being rather selfishly pleased that you wrote this, after l egged you on, l mean l didn’t but l had really hoped you would, as l love the mish and mash you create to make it all mesh together as a post!

Excellent.

I have upset quite profoundly it turned out one blogger to such a degree that they wrote a very long embittered poem about me and posted it to their blog in plain view and l saw it and was absolutely mortified, and l mean really upset that l might have upset someone to such a degree that they would spend this kind of time really berating me over something l considered a slight fault. I showed it to two of my blogger friends and they were like bloody hell ouch!

It came about because l did no reblog a response they did to one of my games, in the early days of 2018, because the series was not doing so well. as a real raw newb, instead of just leaving, l thought standard practice was to delete it, so l did, not their response, just the series. they were very upset to say the least. I emailed them about their poem, apologised for my lack of empathy, and did they remove their poem? No. Although they accepted my apology, the poem stayed up.

I learned a lot through that experience, and as a raw newb, l learned it the hard way. I was genuinely upset because l happened to think a lot of them as a person and their style, but l became cynical to them after that, l still follow them, but share no interaction.

Since then l have unwittingly but knowingly upset maybe two other blogger’s l think, maybe, possibly l don’t really know, but l think l have lol! I don’t go out of my way to upset people, l can come across at times as brash and blunt or direct, but l don’t mean to upset anyone, l can but only be who l am and as you have pointed out nicely, there is always the chance of personality clashes.

One of my biggest failings is that l don’t always get to comment on other blogs as much as l would like to and now l very deliberately take time out to visit other blogger’s blogs in blocks of 3 and read 6 of their latest posts thoroughly and comment, like or compliment which ever is relevant. Like you, l cannot abide liking another post if l haven’t read it, it seems a pointless exercise. So If l have liked something, l have liked it, commented and blah blah because l have actually read it and guess what? That’s right! I have liked it. I am a simple fella really. I have found that working 3 bloggers a day and reading a total of 18 blog posts max works for me currently. it may not be great but at least it’s honest.

i call out three bloggers a day every morning, now the new system, because l have worked out that l love 92 blogger’s blogs of all those that l follow, so in the space of one 31 day month on the new system, l will call out all of my favourite bloggers at least once. The call out is there as a way of saying ‘Hey l really love what you do and l want to say Hi to you to show l still think of you even if l don’t get to you daily.” not sure if it’s read that way, but that’s why l do it.

Rather selfishly l create content that encourages interaction from those 92 blogger’s in the shape of quizzes, questions and games and then, get ready for your lovely phrase, l can Blog Nod them or share their content because l like to share their work.

Sorry about the overly long response Ursual, but your post was worthy of a well thought out response and l am sending you my genuine and since thanks for writing it.

Now my next challenge to you is this, you use some great words Blog Nod, Clickbaiting, love ’em 🙂 Can you create a glossary of your favourite terrms please?

Rory

of course l could have simply liked this and dropped a generic response in that said ‘nice post!’ x

Thank you, Rory 🙂 I had fun doing this post, and it’s on me not you. While you did encourage me with your go go inspector gadget, I’m extremely good at completely not listening to encouragement if I don’t want to do something (often to my own detriment). I graduated summa cum Niki Lauda from Stubborn University.

Want to know what I think about your upset poet? Bloody artist!

You’re a great guy with a great blog, you do an amazing (and exhausting) job creating awesome content, quizzes, prompts, and serious posts too. You know I think you could write a book featuring your stories about your life juxtaposed with your father’s version of events, and I am certain it would be very brilliant. But it’s a lot of work, internally and externally to take on.

Blogging is very similar to life. You win some, you lose some, you have to deal with some… bleep bleep bleepity bleep… and sometimes you’re the bleepity one. Shrug it off, keep going and growing.

I’ll think about the glossary. It’s kind of the worst challenge for someone with list-phobia and yet… that makes it a perfect challenge!

That’s what l have learned in the last 12 months. We cannot please everyone all of the time, so it’s pointless worrying about it. I am not flippant about it, it’s just if l think l may upset someone these days, l will very deliberately go out of my way to make sure what it is l am saying is explained or written in such a way that people or persons are not being criticised or persecuted in a personal way, because some people are just ultra sensitive at everything.

Sometimes l have seen readers take umbrage at things l have written and l have thought mm, this wasn’t actually aimed at you per se, it was wider sweep, that you have found yourself feeling guilty about, and l can’t do anything reallt about that. But working with words now daily, l have greatly improved to how l was perhaps ten years ago when l simply posted in say a forum and fuck the consequences. Now l am more conscious of how l word things.

But thank you for all you have said, and glad you are enjoying the new Blogging Q’s.

As to the glossary, yeah l kind of know what you mean, ha ha, methodical OCD brains look at these things and groan, but then think ooh goody 🙂

Ps Ursula, are you able to correctly edit your name for me in my response. I have a very mild form of dyslexia and occasionally, my letters are mixed up and rather annoyingly it seems to appear in your name – sorry 🙂

Haha! That made me chuckle because I have dyslexia and I probably wouldn’t notice if you’d spelled my name incorrectly as my dyslexia autocorrects things spelled incorrectly while messing up things that are spelled correctly. No worries. I just checked and it’s all good as far as I can tell 😀

ps. I don’t get upset when people misspell my name, it’s just a name and in the case of “Ursula” it’s a nickname so whatever 😉

I’m reading comments backwards atm, so you’re going to get another reply from me in a minute or two.

As a blogger who is both a progressive and an atheist who speaks his mind, I probably upset some bloggers with my posts and rants blasting conservatives and the religious right. But it’s my blog and I’ll rant if I want to. If anyone doesn’t like it, they can always change the channel.

Religion and politics have always been contentious subjects. Even when people agree on a stance, they can still find a way to get upset with each other about it. You express your views calmly and evenly even when it’s a rant, you’re sharing your perspective rather than trying to get a rise out of readers.

A reader once got very upset with me because I suggested to someone else in a comment that they squash a fly which was bothering them.

Haha! 😀 If I apologise for triggering you, it’s going to trigger you too, so I won’t do that which will… oh, dear… there must be a way to win 😉

Twitter used to be a lot of fun. I somehow managed to mostly not get into trouble with people. I only recall it happening a few times, and those instances were more humorous than distressing. But it’s changed a lot since then, I don’t use it anymore, it’s become a place where people go to release stress, rage, and vent their frustrations with everyone and everything.

My twopence worth…
…if people are not able to “get along” with all the different bloggers out there – then goodness knows what they are like in real life.
If I don’t agree with someone in either real life or in the blogging world – I am not going to jump on their back and start whinging at them. I will most likely just move along to another post and keep my peace of mind.
If a blogger was writing material I genuinely found offensive, with content that was perhaps racist or just completely beyond my ability to enjoy – I guess I would perhaps not read their posts any more. But that is mild me. In real life, I would generally just avoind anyone I think is an eeeeed-yat. There are other bloggers who may well put them in their place, just as there are always people in real life happy to tell others what they are doing wrong.

Reading your recent post for the “expert” writing prompt reminded me of another time one of my posts caused upset. I had to add a long disclaimer to the beginning of one of my more popular posts because I had said in jest that I was an “expert” and it upset a bunch of people on a forum. They didn’t take their upset out on me directly, instead they chose to take their upset out on the person on a forum for victims of abuse who had shared the link to my post.

It boggles the mind sometimes, but sometimes the mind needs to be boggled.

Like you I tend to avoid bloggers with whom I do not agree, and whose writing I find offensive or upsetting. It’s easy to move on when online. A quick click and you’re in another dimension.

Offline, it depends on the situation. I will confront people, especially bullies, but I do attempt to be diplomatic about it. You can’t convince anyone that they’re wrong, certainly not by telling them that you think they’re wrong as that will most likely inspire them to dig in for a long campaign. And there’s always that problem of what and who is right and wrong.

I’m sure I have upset people who haven’t directly reacted, but otherwise, it has happened twice. Once when I commented about people who document every breathing moment on Facebook and another time when I posted about US president Trump. The upset over Trump was predictable but I was surprised by the Facebook snark. I thought I was being funny, and so did all the other commenters (except the one who took issue).
You can’t please everyone nor should you try. And anyway, that’s not the point. Exercising your right to your own voice is – as long as you don’t run away with the idea that your voice is the only one that should be heard. 🙂

I definitely don’t think I should let sleeping dogs lie, instead I should yell “Walkies” and let the experience open up the doors of perception. Letting things lie is how I ended up repeatedly attracting and being attracted to N types.

One of the things I’ve found with the contretemps which can happen on social media is that it can offer insight into behavioural patterns. Because it happens in writing, you can rewind to the beginning and follow the entire story, you can reread again and again which allows you to get different angles on it, you can see the different elements coming into play, how the upset unfolds, how you participate in it, how your issues interact with someone else’s, how your own unresolved puzzles may have attracted the experience to you so that you can solve it.

Blogging is a great way to come face to face with yourself and your stories 🙂

[…] during my travels l have read both comments and posts where not everyone feels that way, and asUrsula of An Upturned Soul pointed out, there are times when you simply clash personality wise with another blogger/writer […]